In order to use a peripheral device, such as a scanner device, through an information processing apparatus, it is necessary to install a specific device driver for the peripheral device (a scanner driver, in the case where the peripheral device is a scanner device) in an operating system (OS) running on the information processing apparatus. Accordingly, if a plurality of scanner devices are used, it is necessary to install the same number of scanner drivers as there are scanner devices, and therefore for each scanner device, it is necessary for a user to perform a cumbersome installation operation by checking the IP address and finding a scanner driver for the scanner device.
In view of this, recently, research and development of an OS/general scanner driver that can be used in any scanner device regardless of the type of scanner device are being carried out. For example, a method has been proposed in which scanning is performed by selecting an available network scanner device after a scan instruction has been issued from an application to the OS/general scanner driver. According to this method, it is possible to use all scanner devices supported by the OS/general scanner driver simply by preinstalling only the OS/general scanner driver in an information processing apparatus. Also, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-145970 proposes a system in which when a management server receives a network participation message in unicast from a device, a driver for that device is push installed in each client PC, and thereby the usage environment is constructed and managed.
For various types of scan processing executed by a scanner device on a network using a scanner driver, the user needs to move back and forth between the information processing apparatus and the scanner device. For example, the user needs to specify a scanner device, perform association with the target scanner device, perform scan setting and activate the scanner driver on the information processing apparatus side, thereafter go to the scanner device to set an original, and then go back to the information processing apparatus to execute a scan process. Furthermore, after the scan process, the user needs to go to the scanner device to remove the original.
In view of this, a system has been recently proposed in which a network-compliant scanner driver performs a pseudo push scan function as a specific scan mode that can be easily used in USB interface-compliant scanner devices. “Pseudo push scan” is a scan process that transmits image data from a scanner device to an information processing apparatus as if pushing the data to the information processing apparatus. The internal operations are as follows. In response to a user operation, a signal for commencing the scan process is transmitted from the scanner device to the scan data destination information processing apparatus, and the information processing apparatus that has received the signal acquires image data via the scanner driver. The pseudo push scan system can use a scanner driver for pull scan provided in the OS and has the potential of reducing the load of functions mounted on the scanner device as compared to that of a genuine push scan system, and is therefore attracting attention.
However, the conventional technology has the following problems. For example, with the scanner device corresponding to the OS/general scanner driver as described above in the Description of the Related Art, unlike a scanner device that uses an USB interface, the information processing apparatus and the scanner device are not connected in one-to-one correspondence. Accordingly, in order to construct a pseudo push scan system, it is necessary to perform association with each scanner device and make scan process settings on the information processing apparatus side. Furthermore, if a plurality of information processing apparatuses are used, it is necessary to, for each information processing apparatus, perform cumbersome operations such as scan setting as described above. Accordingly, when scanning is performed with an information processing apparatus that the user uses for the first time, the user needs to first go to the information processing apparatus. If the information processing apparatus and the scanner device are distant from each other, user movements are required, which is a time consuming and laborious operation.